There's not much to do.
Alright, there's bloody nothing to do.
Spike whiles away an hour or two snooping a bit further through Buffy's things, methodically finding which books are the most thumbed on her shelves, reading pieces she'd clearly lingered over if the thumb marks on the fore-edge were anything to go by.
He spends some time looking through her clothes, nostalgically remembering pieces she'd worn in some of their more heated moments.
The red leatherette pants she'd had on the day Riley went missing in the caves definitely do something to him. His cheek prickles as he fondly and masochistically remembers the glorious slap. A burning point of contact that sent him over the edge of, if not clear-cut hatred, at least an indefinable irritation into darker waters.
On second thought, an all too definable irritation…
Don't get carried away again, he admonishes himself, and leaves the closet to go potter about downstairs..
Eventually he winds up on the sofa watching daytime TV with the curtains closed.
"We can confirm," Jerry pauses briefly holding the envelope to his chest as he looks down seriously, "that Michael is the father-"
The crowd cheers.
A man with impressively severe eyebrows bounces up joyously from the chair on the stage, embracing a kid, maybe seven years old, with almost identically severe eyebrows.
"Shocker," Spike mutters, sarcastically. "Surprised they even bothered with the test in the first place."
He stretches out on the sofa until his head is hanging over the arm of it in an exaggerated lounge.
Bored.
So sodding bored.
He sighs, and shifts so a hand is under his neck. His fingers map out where Buffy's hand had settled at the base of his shoulder—holding on to him in their shared sleep—and he touches the area tenderly to recreate the sensation.
Naturally, his thoughts drift to their kiss. As they do continuously any free second he has, at the moment. Picking her up in his mind and turning over their moments together like a lucky coin caressed in a pocket.
It really seems like she's doing better. Her old self, almost. There's still a hint, a smudgy stain, of anxiety that only really makes itself known right in the whites of her eyes. Lingering in her scent as he wraps himself around her before they turn off the lights.
There's always a beat. A small half-tremble before she lets out a tentative breath. As if she was lowering herself into cold water. A huff out as she achieves full submersion.
There's a nagging doubt in his heart that if he gets her through that last horror still lingering—if she heals just that little bit further—then he'll be out on his ass. That all these sweet tender moments, all these intimate touches that he's clinging to with greedy fingers, are all just a delusion on her part to make herself believe he's not the embodiment of a night light for a frighten child scared of the dark—
No, knock it off, give the girl some credit.
She thought that kiss through. She thought it all through.
…The way she'd glanced at the bed—eyes resting on the comforter folded for him, a bit too hard as if she was afraid to look anywhere else—gives him a pleasant shiver.
Overthought it, even.
He smiles, his head upside-down makes the swallow in his throat more pronounced.
She's thinking of me that way…
Amazing.
That dress she wore… it had taken him a while to achieve even a light doze on the sofa afterwards thinking about all those soft clinging curves. The velvet touch under his fingers a suggestion of how her skin might feel once free of it.
He replays the moment her eyes had opened a crack as she slowed them both down. A knowing glint sparkling in her eyes.
She'd looked stunning like that. Slightly smug but shy, too. Deliciously shy… she knew what he wanted because she wanted it too, just not yet…
The old, cocky part of himself—the one that has a bit of extra tooth—stretches his legs in a mental swagger. Trust me, luv. There'd be no bad dreams afterwards…
His eyes start to close of their own accord and he thinks maybe he'll just sleep until Buffy gets back since there's nothing else going on, when movement flickers in his periphery.
He turns, and sees Tara standing near the front door.
"Oh, you're back," he says, righting himself on the sofa. "Make some noise next time, Glinda, you're quieter than a… church mouse…" he trails off.
She's waving her arms over the doorway, her mouth moving wordlessly like someone had set her on mute, but every so often she glances at a spot next to her as if someone else was standing there. She moves, and that's when it hits him; that he's staring through her chest into the dining room on the other side.
Spike gets to his feet—slowly, no sudden movements—eyebrows furrowing. "Well, hello, beastie."
He edges towards her, flinches back as an arm waving a burning herb stick nearly passes through him, smoke curling off into gray spirals.
"Got some unfinished wafting to do, have you?" he asks, but the apparition doesn't even glance at him.
He cocks his head, and cautiously glides his hand through her.
The sensation nearly makes him gag, lurching back as an intensely unpleasant feeling of hitting a nerve the wrong way floods his arm, mingled with the sensation of touching cold offal. Guts that aren't there.
"Dunno what you are, but ghost aint it," he says as he stands further out of Tara's reach, loath to let those see-through limbs touch him.
Tara stops waving her herb stick, smiling sweetly at that spot next to her, and Spike takes a seat on the stairs, watching the whole silent movie play out as Jerry Springer continues putting the world to rights on the TV.
"Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a witch who wasn't there…" he mutters to himself.
Tara's lips move, confirming something with an easy shrug.
Spike's eyes narrow. "Who are you talking to, I wonder?"
Tara adjusts her hair behind her ears, flirtingly. A coy half smile spreading across her face.
Spike's jaw tightens. Clue, the first.
Tara hands the herb stick to something—someone—not there and it disappears.
She nods and then exits straight through the closed front door, turning once behind her as though making sure whatever company she has is following.
"Oh, well now, if it's charades we're playing give me a harder one," Spike growls at the retreating figure, resting back on his elbows. "Someone not here, with the ability to put a smile on our witch's face, and who just loves to cause problems in this damn house. Wonder who that could possibly be?" Bitterness makes his words meaner, even as they fall on the empty room.
He recognised that early-love look in Tara's eyes. Had been on the sidelines as it blossomed.
If the time frame fit…
He lets out an angry sigh. Pretty sure I just bloody well saw my own banishment.
He swallows down the flair of rejection the memory causes. How his heart had constricted in disbelief at that sudden push back the house had given him.
God, the contempt on Buffy's face. Whenever that memory bubbled up it stung so fresh.
Spike pinches the bridge of his nose as though that might hold the thought in place before forcing it back down. It's not like that anymore.
He eyes the door one last time before a new thought takes hold of him.
Kicking himself off the stairs he mounts them to the upper floor, moving down the hall towards the witches room.
He pauses at the door, biting his cheek in hesitation. There's no sounds from the other side but if downstairs was anything to go by there wouldn't be. Cautiously, he opens it and his eyes lock on another Tara. This time sitting on the bed. Her head tilted up, wide eyes sparkling with adoration, her hands hovering in mid air as though on Willow's hips.
Her eyes flutter closed and her mouth moves as if receiving a kiss, lips opening as a not-there-Willow deepens it and Spike winces. There's something unsavory in seeing only half of a kiss.
Willow's invisible hands move Tara's hair back from her face and she tilts her head, obviously receiving kisses down her neck as Willow starts heading south-
"Yep, think that's plenty." Spike shuts the door behind him, relieved to be back on the other side even as his skin prickles at leaving Tara's apparition alone in there. The whole thing feels supremely intrusive of her.
"Safe enough as long as they never got carnal anywhere else," he grouches, heading back down the stairs. "Fucking Willow."
If that witch is doing this on purpose I'm gonna snap her neck.
Shit, Tara's gonna lose her mind seeing that…
He finds the phone and begins to key it in the number for the Magic Box when it rings in his hand.
Assuming it's Buffy calling, he answers.
"Hi, I was-"
"Spike?" Giles' voice crackles from the other side, causing Spike to blink in confusion for a moment at the very not-Buffy voice suddenly in his ear. "Glad to catch you, I was just calling to make sure you found the books alright?" he enquires, a background hiss of static making his words sound like they're traveling through a rain cloud.
"Uh huh," Spike huffs out, keeping an eye on the front door.
"I trust I'm not disturbing your morning?" he prompts, when Spike says nothing else.
Spike manages a snort. "Can honestly say it's been plenty disturbing without you."
"Oh?" Giles nudges verbally, and Spike can all but envisage him leaning forward with interest. Probably pushing those goddamn glasses higher up on his nose, ready for business. "Something going on?"
Isn't there always?
"We've got a bit of an… infestation."
"...Rats?" Giles asks.
"Taras."
He expects confusion. Or at best a light chuckle as though he were being blithely insincere.
But then Giles says the two words that when uttered from British lips foretells of a stage five—call the fire department—somebody pushed the red button—level catastrophe.
"...Oh dear."